


Constant as the Northern Star

by Nestra



Series: Author's Favorites [17]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-Series, Very minor spoiler for Opal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:46:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/pseuds/Nestra
Summary: "When Ronan reached for him, Adam realized that Ronan had never been unsure."





	Constant as the Northern Star

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to shrift for beta.

Monmouth remained theirs, at least for the moment, its walls and windows unchanged and solid. They all sprawled around—Gansey and Blue on the bed, the others on the floor—grubby and bruised and shaken. As always, there were five of them, but now the largely silent fifth member was Henry, not Noah. Blue knew that the shock making Henry mute would soon wear off.

She tried again, whispering, "Noah, are you there? Use my energy if you need it." No one expected it to work, least of all her. She could tell, somehow, that Noah wasn't coming back. Not an absence, but a sort of hole where Noah's absence used to be. Gansey's third chance at life meant that whatever had held Noah to them was gone.

_Three is a very strong number._

She sighed and laid her head on Gansey's shoulder. There were probably more sacrifices that they weren't aware of yet. More wounds and scars. But hopefully they would find unexpected gifts to balance out the losses. She shifted, pressing her ear to Gansey's chest so she could hear his strong heartbeat

"Now what?" Adam asked.

Ronan snorted. "What do you want, a parade? No one has any idea that all of this happened."

"I think I may envy them," Henry said. Gansey flinched under her, a movement that she wouldn't have noticed if she'd been in her usual place, a safe twelve inches away. It was difficult to remember that they were allowed now. Allowed to touch, to speak of each other, even to kiss. Even more...though maybe she wasn't ready to contemplate that quite yet. She wanted some time to enjoy the simplicity of their new relationship. A boy and a girl, with no one cursed or fated to die.

"That really how you feel, Cheng?" Ronan asked. "You'd be happier not knowing anything, just being as ignorant as everyone else?"

"Of course not." He reached into a pocket and pulled out RoboBee; in the absence of any orders, it swirled lazily around the room, drawing everyone's eyes after it and the rays of dying sunshine. "I already knew about the magic. It just hit a little close to the bone today."

"Not like you have anything to complain about." Ronan's hand reached for the bruises on his throat, but Adam grabbed his wrist before he could touch the purpling flesh.

 _Huh_ , Blue thought, watching Ronan still, without complaint, under Adam's touch. She looked at Gansey, under cover of shifting position on the bed. Gansey raised his eyebrows in a way that managed to convey complete innocence of whatever question Blue was asking, and yet told Blue that he knew about it, whatever it was.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Adam asked Gansey. "I'm still not convinced that both of you shouldn't go to the hospital." He set Ronan's hand down and brushed his fingers across the worst of the marks he had left on Ronan. 

_Huh_ , Blue thought harder, with a twinge of suspicion.

"I'm quite sure," Gansey replied. "Never felt better. And I'm just as sure that I don't want to try and explain any of this to any medical personnel. It's bad enough that I'll have to figure out what to tell my parents and Helen."

Blue said, "What about Glendower?"

"What about him?" It hurt to hear Gansey so casually dismissing his former obsession, the cause that had consumed years of his life.

"What will you say about him? To your family? Or Malory?"

"Nothing yet, I think. Not right away. But someone will find that cave before long."

Blue couldn't imagine him having that conversation with his parents. She'd never met any two people so solidly convinced of their place in the world and their understanding of it. A conversation that started with "I found Glendower, and he was dead" and progressed to "Also, I died too"—he could have that with Maura, with Malory, even maybe with Helen. Not with Richard Campbell Gansey II and Senator Gansey.

"You should at least get credit for finding him," she pressed.

"I will. Malory will write some journal articles. I'll get a co-author credit. We'll fund a dig. And only we will know what might have been." He sighed, releasing the dream along with the breath. But then he lifted his arm to pull Blue closer to him, and though she knew the loss of that dream would hurt him for a while yet, she did not regret the results.

A dead Glendower for a live Gansey.

"I should probably go home," she said. A brief phone call hours ago had reassured Maura, but Blue needed to see her mother and hold her and tell her what had happened. And from what Maura hadn't said on the phone, Blue knew that the Gray Man was gone, somehow or somewhere. Maura would need her.

"I'll take you." Gansey started digging in his pocket for the keys to the Pig, and when Blue moved to accommodate him, she saw Ronan unlacing his fingers from Adam's, where their joined hands had been almost hidden in the space between them.

"No," she said slowly, "I think Adam will take me."

Adam, Gansey, and Ronan had a silent three-way conversation, consisting of more raised eyebrows, and slight shrugs, and the ghost of a smug smile curving Ronan's mouth.

"Take the BMW," Ronan said. She watched as Adam carefully plucked the keys from Ronan's outstretched hand. Even that slight touch illuminated something in Ronan, like a light shined on a hidden part of him. 

She'd always seen him in shades of black and white and blood red, but now it was like her eye could detect other colors warming the line of his cheekbones. Blue in the creases at the corners of his eyes, gold on the tips of his fingers.

Behind them, the door shut with a thud. Adam headed down the stairs and so very deliberately did not look at her. Blue refused to hurry enough to catch up with him; by the time she reached the car, he was sitting in the driver's seat and looking out the windshield at nothing. Blue then refused to stare at nothing and so stared at Adam instead until he gave up, looked at her, and blushed. 

The car's engine turned over and purred, as satisfied and smug as Ronan had been.

She allowed him one stoplight of silence. Then:

"You and Ronan? Seriously?"

His shoulders hunched up until they touched his ears. "Sorry, I didn't mean to...I mean, we didn't..."

When he trailed off, she whacked him in the arm. The car jerked a little to the left. _"Seriously?"_

He straightened the wheel and then glared at her. "You especially don't get to complain about me keeping this a secret. It's been a day. Or maybe two. What the hell day is it again?"

"I'm not complaining," she said, a little abashed. "I'm just...is there a word that means surprised, but also happy, but also worried?"

"Worried?"

"Since when are you into..." She waved her hand and let the gesture stand in for the rest of the sentence.

"Since his birthday, I guess. He kissed me." 

"Wow." The word didn't seem long enough to express all of her emotions it contained.

"Yeah," he said, a secret, reminiscent smile on his face. She could feel several more secrets lined up behind that one, but she didn't deserve to know everything.

"Are you sure about this?" she said instead. "He's impossible."

"Of course he is," Adam said. "Who isn't? But Ronan...it's like he's a part of me, but I just hadn't noticed yet. Something it would hurt to lose. And when he loves, he loves with everything he has."

Blue nodded, thinking to herself. Matthew. Chainsaw. His mother. His tears over Gansey's body. His ferocious loyalty, and what something like that would mean to someone like Adam, only now learning to trust.

"And it's nice to be loved for once," he said quietly.

"It's not just that, though, right? I know it's totally not my place to say it, but...it's not just because he wants it?"

"It's not," Adam replied. "It's a lot of things, and they're mostly none of your business."

She could tell he didn't mean it as an attack on her, but it still stung a little. She was friendly with most of her mistakes, but Adam was one she wished she hadn't made. He'd earned the right to rebuke her, though, along with as much dazed happiness as she felt.

They pulled up outside of 300 Fox Way. The house looked ablaze—they must have turned on every light inside and out. Maura stood, framed in the open door.

Blue gestured towards the house. "I probably have thirty seconds before she comes and drags me out of the car. But that doesn't mean I don't want to talk about this, if you need it. We can talk about it as much as you want. Or not talk about it."

Adam looked down at the steering wheel. "Thanks. I probably will need it. And better you than Gansey."

Even the thought of Gansey made her shiver, followed by a heart-deep gratitude for his life. "I'm really happy for you, you know."

"Of course," he said. "I'm happy for you too."

She opened the car door and started to head to the house, but then reconsidered and walked around to the driver's side. She waited until Adam rolled down the window, then leaned inside to hug him.

Three was strong, three parts spaced and firmly on the ground. But creatures with two legs managed to stay upright as well. Gansey, Ronan, and Adam. Gansey and Henry. Blue and Gansey and Adam. Adam and Ronan. 

Blue and Gansey. She whispered it to herself as she walked toward the open door and the open arms of her mother.

 _Blue and Gansey._ Feet on the ground. Eyes on the stars.

***

Adam pulled up to Monmouth and put the car into park, leaving the engine running. As Ronan approached, Adam got out of the car and circled around to the passenger side.

"Is Gansey okay?" he asked as Ronan slipped into the driver's seat.

"Yeah, he just wants some time alone, I guess. It'd be the last thing I wanted if I'd—"

"You did almost die," Adam snapped. "We're not even going to think about anybody dying, not for a very long time."

Ronan looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Christ, Parrish. I thought I was the asshole."

Adam took a deep breath and let it fill in some of the cracks inside him. "Sorry."

"Not that you're wrong," Ronan added after a moment. "Fuck death, anyway."

They drove in silence for several minutes. His awareness of Ronan hummed through him, as if he'd be able to reach out with unerring accuracy in the dark car and put his fingers on Ronan's neck, or his thigh, or the half-inch strip of skin between the leather bands around his wrist. He wanted to put his mouth on all of those places too.

Through that endless night when they'd first kissed, they'd sat on the couch and discovered each other, made out lazily for hours, falling out of and back into it at the lightest touch. Minutes where they simply sat, drunk on touch, content to know that they'd be touching again soon. Adam had skimmed Ronan's shirt off and traced the lines of his tattoo over and over, then pulled Ronan against him, pressing his erection against the small of Ronan's back. Seeing that Ronan was hard too, the shape of him outlined through his jeans. Desire was something known, but not urgent.

He'd slept half of the night and half of the next day in Declan's room, down the hall from Ronan, and knowing he was close was satisfaction enough.

This night, this night after the day of magic and loss and rebirth—he didn't want to spend this night alone.

But he couldn't forget that the morning after they'd kissed was also the day Ronan's mother had died. Been killed. Been murdered. Been torn apart. He thought the numbness was gone from Ronan, pushed out by the immediate facts of Gansey's death and Cabeswater's sacrifice, but maybe Ronan preferred the numbness to the painful sting of returning feeling.

He'd lost so much. Adam had suffered losses too, but Ronan had possessed far more to lose.

If Ronan had reached out, Adam would have responded. But he did not, and they continued in silence as they pulled into the driveway, past the oaks and the ivy and into Ronan's heart.

Adam understood why Niall Lynch's will had prevented his children from returning to the Barns. By dreaming a new will, Ronan had proved that he had control over his dreaming. That he was worthy of being the Graywaren. But Adam, having seen what that exile did to Ronan, would never forgive Niall Lynch for it.

He followed Ronan as they walked inside. Ronan passed by the light switches, letting the moonlight from the windows guide him. Even when empty, the Barns never felt like it to Adam. Maybe he could sense all of the dream-things in the house. Or could he, with Cabeswater gone? He didn't know how he felt about that. No, he did know, but he had too many feelings simultaneously: concern, relief, uncertainty, loss, need. It was another question deferred to the future. 

Ronan reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped abruptly. Adam had to jerk to a stop to avoid running into him. 

In the pale light, he seemed all long limbs, lean arms emerging from the black t-shirt, tight jeans outlining the strength in his legs. Adam's fingers ached to touch him. But he didn't know what Ronan needed, and that was far more important than what Adam wanted. Ronan might want to wait, to mourn in solitude, to not get any closer to someone who was leaving town in less than a year.

When Ronan reached for him, Adam realized that Ronan had never been unsure. He'd been the one to take the first step, kiss Adam, brave in a way that Adam had never been. The kiss was the decision. Ronan had made his choice, and he wasn't one for second-guessing.

Ronan kissed him slow and deep, his hands coming up to frame Adam's face. The wet press of his tongue into Adam's mouth felt like it stole the breath from his body. But he didn't need to breathe. He had this. The sound of Ronan's quiet sigh as he pulled back and softened the kiss. The brush of his hands over the bare skin of Ronan's shoulders.

Ronan trailed his fingers down Adam's right arm and lifted Adam's hand. He brushed a kiss against the palm, and as Adam marveled at the sweetness of it, sucked Adam's index finger into his mouth. The implication was clear, Ronan's tongue teasing the tip, then curling around the base.

"Holy shit," Adam murmured.

Releasing his finger, Ronan tugged him closer and turned to climb the stairs.

"Hold on," Adam said, resisting the move. "Are you sure you don't want to wait?"

"Jesus, for what?" Ronan looked at him like this was the stupidest thing Adam had ever said, topping a long list of contenders.

"So much has happened." Adam waved his hand. Death and trauma and heartbreak.

"Yeah. A lot of shitty stuff happened. But a lot of good stuff happened too. Gansey's alive. Sargent doesn't have that stupid curse anymore. You're not possessed by a demon and trying to kill me." He paused, his eyes dark in the moonlight. "The shitty stuff sucked. I want the good stuff."

He couldn't stop himself from asking, even though he hated to reveal the vulnerability he knew was obvious. "I'm the good stuff?"

As he knew would happen, Ronan didn't answer. Not in words. Ronan was teaching him a new language, where asshole was a term of affection, Adam was the answer to a question, and there was no word for no.

 _Yes_ , said the touch of Ronan's lips on his cheek. _More_ , said the brief press of his body against Adam. _Now_ , said the clasp of his hand.

 _Yes_ , Adam responded, following him up the stairs.

Ronan's room would forever remind him of that first kiss. They tumbled onto the bed with none of their earlier restraint, Ronan kissing him anywhere he could reach—Adam's neck, his forehead, his bottom lip. When they settled, Ronan lay on his back, Adam cradled between his thighs and braced above him on his forearms. He felt like he could kiss Ronan forever, Ronan gasping each time they pulled apart to breathe.

Ronan's hands trailed down his back to his ass, pulling him in tighter. Grinding his pelvis against Ronan's drew moans from them both and turned the kisses even hungrier. Ronan's hands encouraged his rhythm, his fingers digging in.

"Oh, fuck," Adam whispered, unprepared for how quickly the sensation was building. He didn't want to come yet, not without at least getting some of their clothes off. "Hold on, hold on a second—"

He leaned his weight back to sit on his heels. Ronan looked like he wanted to complain, but then Adam stripped off his shirt and dropped it by the side of the bed. He reached for Adam and ran the tips of his fingers down the center of Adam's chest.

"You too," Adam insisted.

Ronan scooted up a bit on the bed and fumbled behind himself for his shirt. Adam could barely wait until he had finished before lowering himself back down, skin to skin. Since Ronan had moved, Adam only had the bed to rub against, but he couldn't help the little rocking motions his hips were making. They kissed again, softly.

"I'm not sure what to do," Adam whispered into Ronan's shoulder.

Ronan twitched with laughter. "Like I know? Though I bet I've watched more porn than you have."

That shouldn't have been erotic. The little porn Adam had seen was coarse, equal parts arousing and distasteful. But the vision of Ronan, sitting in the dark of his room at Monmouth, volume turned down low on his laptop, the glow of the screen glancing off his knuckles as he wrapped a hand around his cock...he felt a lightning bolt of desire. Helplessly, he dragged his lips up to kiss Ronan again.

"We'll figure it out," Adam said.

He mouthed at the bruises on Ronan's neck, tracing the darkest parts lightly with his tongue. With his deaf ear, he couldn't hear Ronan's panting breaths, but he felt each gust of air brush against his skin. Ronan pushed his fingers into Adam's hair and scratched at his scalp, and Adam sighed. People who only knew the front that Ronan presented to the world might be surprised at his capacity for gentleness. Even before he discovered how Ronan felt about him, Adam had known how lucky he was, included in the select group who truly saw Ronan for the complex creature that he was.

Ronan pulled him up for another languorous kiss, then grabbed Adam by the hips and rolled them over. Once on top, Ronan abandoned gentleness. He sucked on the skin just below Adam's jaw until it stung. He shoved his knee between Adam's legs and toyed with the button of his jeans.

"Can I?"

At Adam's nod, he undid the button, pulled down the zipper, and sat back on his heels to tug them off. Before he could lean back down, Adam stuck his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and took them off too. He wanted to give Ronan everything, whatever he wanted. Any nervousness he had was immediately dispelled when Ronan breathed, "Jesus, Adam," and pressed the heel of his hand against his own cock.

Wanted. He felt seen and wanted. Every part of him that Ronan kissed—his bicep, his nipples, his palm, his hipbone. A quiet noise came out of Ronan at every touch, and each sound just made Adam harder. He rubbed his cock against Ronan's stomach, which made Ronan drop his forehead to Adam's shoulder.

He took a deep breath, then kissed his way down Adam's chest and paused as he reached Adam's cock. His breath brushed over the tight skin, and Adam clenched the sheet with both hands. There had never been a time that he hadn't been waiting for this.

Ronan opened his mouth and carefully took the head of Adam's cock inside.

It was awkward. It was a little too dry, and then a little too wet. It took Ronan a minute to figure out how far down he could go, and he coughed when he tried to take too much in. There was the occasional scrape of teeth. Every motion made it clear that Ronan had never done anything like this before.

It was the most amazing thing Adam had ever felt or seen.

He scrunched his eyes shut, because the sight of Ronan, sucking Adam's cock with his own eyes closed, was too much to take. He felt wounded, forever scarred. It was terrifying, to be wanted so much, for Ronan to take and take as much as he gave, each tug of his hand and brush of his mouth demanding more and more again. 

Ronan put his hands on Adam's hips and shifted his weight to press Adam into the bed and still his movements. He couldn't help the sounds that began to emerge, starting with a heavy intake of breath and quickly becoming moans and whimpers. He'd thought Ronan might tease him, bring him to the brink and then back down, out of sheer stubbornness and mischief. Instead, each sound seemed to encourage Ronan to suck harder, to use his tongue, to slowly move his head up and down. He listened, and he adjusted, and he learned how to shatter Adam.

The sensation built like a glow, brighter and brighter and more focused. He wanted to warn Ronan, but he couldn't find any words. And Ronan was observant. He knew what was about to happen.

Coming felt like an arrival, a beginning and an ending and a vacancy in his heart for all the time they'd spent not doing this. He arched off the bed and let Ronan's strength hold him down. Ronan swallowed around him and kept Adam in his mouth until the last spasms had stopped. Then he climbed back up the bed and collapsed, half-on Adam, half-off. 

Adam tipped up Ronan's chin to meet his eyes. He wondered if Ronan would look embarrassed, with his red, red lips, but Ronan was defiant, daring anyone, even Adam, to make him ashamed of what he'd done.

He kissed Ronan with his own defiance, tongue pushing into his mouth, tasting himself with each stroke. He tried to pour everything into the kiss—every reassurance he'd ever needed, every promise he wanted to make. Every way he knew he could hurt Ronan. Fights between the two of them were inevitable, but he never wanted Ronan to wonder about his wholehearted commitment.

Their hands tangled and worked together to strip the rest of Ronan's clothes off. Adam felt drunk on skin, miles of skin and long lean muscle and scars from Ronan's self-inflicted wounds.

A new hunger was building inside him, or whatever the opposite of hunger was. The insatiable need to give, to fulfill. He could feel Ronan's erection pressed to the side of his leg as Ronan started to undulate against him. There was no way he was letting Ronan get off like that. He rolled onto his side and pushed Ronan back to lie flat.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Anything," Ronan said distantly, his eyes half-closed, almost as if he wasn't part of the conversation. As if he was too focused on their bodies to vocalize what he wanted.

Anything. He could do anything. He could kiss his way along Ronan's jaw and down to the soft flesh of his throat. He could cup Ronan's close-cropped head and guide him as Ronan sucked him off. He could hold Ronan's wrists in a grip that was a little too tight as he got hard again, rubbing against the muscles of Ronan's stomach. He could put his mouth—he could—he could—

"What do you want?"

Ronan's marvelous eyes flew open. _"Everything."_

He reached for Ronan's cock, but Ronan intercepted his hand. "Lube," he said, pointing at the bedside table. Adam fumbled for the container, wondering whether Ronan had bought it off the internet or faced down the cashier at the local drug store.

With a slick hand, he gripped Ronan's cock at the base, then slowly dragged it upwards. Ronan's head tipped back and his abdominal muscles tensed.

"Fuck, yes." He wrapped his hand around Adam's wrist, not trying to control it, just feeling it flex with each motion.

Power flooded Adam, watching Ronan's mouth tense and twist with each stroke of his hand. Lying down next to him, stretching himself out along his body, he skimmed his left hand over the soft fuzz of Ronan's hair.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered, his lips brushing Ronan's ear. "What you dreamed of."

"Shit," Ronan gasped. "I told you. All of it."

"Say the words."

"You. Your hands. You kissing me while we fuck. Tying you down and making you beg. Watching while you jerk off. Blowing you, fucking you, everything." Ronan stared up at the ceiling during the recitation, eyes half-shut. Meeting Adam in the middle ground between talk and action. He'd never live there, but he'd visit, for Adam's sake.

"Here." He released Ronan's cock and took his hand, squeezing some lube on it. A noise that in anyone else would have been called a whine escaped Ronan, but Adam said, "Trust me," and guided Ronan's hand to his cock and through a couple of strokes before releasing it. From there, Adam let his hand travel down, past the bottom of Ronan's cock. Lower. And lower. Ronan immediately spread his legs and hitched his hips up, turning his head toward Adam. They kissed, Adam's lips brushing over Ronan's open and panting mouth.

He carefully pushed his index finger inside, and if his hand was trembling, neither of them mentioned it. His initial hesitation disappeared when he looked at Ronan, and it was clear how much he wanted this. The normally pale skin of his chest was flushed red, and he slowed the rhythm of his hand to synchronize with Adam's movements.

Ronan was usually so guarded, an arm or the angle of a hip or an obscenity standing in between him and other people. But now, all of the barriers were down. His arms, his legs, his mouth, his heart—all open. Part of Adam wanted to turn away from such vulnerability, but he was slowly beginning to understand that however much Ronan needed from him, he was enough.

He got a little more lube and added a second finger. Ronan was hot around him, burning so hot inside. He couldn't help but think of what it would be like to fuck him, to slowly push his cock inside as Ronan writhed beneath him. He wanted it desperately, and just as much, he wanted the reverse. Ronan inside of him, surrounded, as close as he could get.

The possibilities made him dizzy. There was so much he wanted. So much he could give.

"Faster," Ronan said through gritted teeth. Adam pushed in again. Faster, deeper, more. The breath froze in Ronan's lungs, and Adam watched his face contort with pleasure as he came. After a few seconds, he gently withdrew his fingers.

A little self-consciously, he placed a kiss on the thin skin over Ronan's ribs. "Breathe," he whispered.

Ronan wiped his hand on the sheet, then grabbed Adam's upper arm and tugged until Adam could rest his head on Ronan's shoulder. Slowly, he felt Ronan's chest inflate, slowly sink down. Slowly. Quiet, in a way he'd never associated with Ronan before. At peace.

They were both a little sticky, a little sweaty. Where they were pressed together, skin to skin, prickles would soon turn into overheating. And they were definitely going to need to change the sheets and wash their hands. But Ronan's lips brushed his forehead with heart-breaking tenderness, and a happy Ronan was a fearsome thing. Everything else could wait.

***

Ronan didn't look at the suitcase on the floor, full of Adam's possessions that had migrated to the Barns over the past several months. If he kicked it a little as he stepped around it, well, that wasn't his fault. Because he hadn't seen it.

Because he wasn't looking.

Three days. Not that he was counting. He wasn't counting or looking or worrying. 

Adam's arms slid around him from behind. Ronan sighed, laced his fingers together over Adam's hands on his waist, and tipped his head back so that his cheek rested against Adam's. He'd become so used to these casual touches so quickly. Adam's hand running over his hair as he walked by a seated Ronan. A brush of fingers as he handed something over. Those touches had helped fill a hole in him, and now the hole was about to get excavated again.

"I think that's just about everything," Adam said. 

Ronan stifled the urge to kick the fucking thing again. Adam seemed to sense it, even though Ronan didn't move at all. But there was nothing Adam could say, nothing that hadn't already been said and affirmed and pledged by urgent touches and whispered pleas and long midnight silences. By the clasp of their hands.

"Now that the shitbox is fixed," Adam murmured, "dream me something else."

"Like what?"

"Something I can look at or touch. Something that's you."

Ronan slid a hand down to his pocket. "Jesus, it's like you're psychic or something." He turned in Adam's embrace and pulled one of his hands off his waist. "Here."

The medal he laid in Adam's palm was copper-colored, the size of a quarter, heavier than it should have been. Adam held it up to examine it in the afternoon light. On one side was an engraved image of a man in long robes, carrying a staff or walking stick.

"Christopher is the patron saint of travelers," Ronan said. "Which is bullshit, but whatever."

"And the other side?" 

On the other side, a series of lines chased themselves around and under, twisting and forming a different shape with every glance. The limb of a tree, a lock of hair, the spine of a book, the curve of a wing.

"It looks like part of your tattoo," Adam said wonderingly.

"When you touch the medal, I'll feel it."

Adam stroked a finger across the surface, and a phantom touch grazed Ronan's palm.

"How will I know when you're thinking about me?" he teased.

"Stupid question, Parrish."

He leaned in to kiss Adam, trapping their hands between their bodies. Adam smelled a little like sweat and grass and tasted like the Coke he'd had with dinner. Then he kissed one of his favorite places on Adam, the hollow above his collarbone, once, twice.

"Come back," Ronan said, one last time.

Adam smiled at him and touched his forehead to Ronan's. "I promised I would."

Adam would be back. Ronan would visit. Not even his dreams lasted forever, and he fucking hated that. But it would be okay. There were always more dreams.


End file.
